With the fall of the Assad regime, questions are being raised about the possibility of a change of government in Tehran, which appears increasingly weakened. As he explains to Prof. Pejman Abdolmohammadi, professor of Middle East International Relations at the University of Trento, in the new American vision of the region, the Houthis and the Shiite militias in Iraq are the next elements of the so-called Iranian “Axis of Resistance” that They could be targets of attacks.
After the turbulence that led to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, many have begun to wonder if the fall of the Islamic Republic regime in Iran, which has been the actor most weakened by recent events in the Middle East, is also possible. . The next to be attacked will be the Houthis and the Hashd al-Sha’abi militias in Iraq, the other pro-Iranian forces operating in the Middle East, but then it will be Tehran’s turn, to which these forces respond, says Professor Pejman Abdolmohammadi, professor of Middle East International Relations at the University of Trento and researcher at ISPI (Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale): “So far, three have fallen, Hamas, Hezbollah and the pro-Shiite militias in Syria, known as Haramyun, remain two to finish weakening Iran: the Houthis in Yemen and the Hashd al-Sha’abi, the Popular Mobilization Forces, which brings together a series of militias. mainly Shiites.
What is happening in the Middle East, according to the professor, is the verification of a paradigm shift that began with the first presidency of Donald Trump. “At that time, a political, economic and even intelligence trend began against radical and moderate political Islam. Since the ’70s, both Republicans and Democrats consider that the presence of leadership linked to political Islam could somehow favor an increase in influence in the Middle East. Although the doctrines of George HW Bush and Barack Obama were different, they moved within the same paradigm,” he explains to .
The arrival of Donald Trump changes the cards on the table: “The vision of a different United States arrives, which also wants a different system in the Middle East and which has other global interests, first of all counteracting and containing China very firmly. , something that was not an objective of the ‘old’ paradigm, and many times even sought collaboration with Beijing,” the professor continues.
This new trend begins when the United States withdraws from the nuclear agreement that had been signed in 2015 between Iran and the five countries of the United Nations Permanent Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) plus Germany. And then it continues with the selective assassinations of recent years: from Iranian General Qassem Soleimani (in 2020), the main architect of what Iran calls the “Axis of Resistance”, made up of proxy Iranians in the Middle East, to that of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which, together with the explosion of Hezbollah members’ pagers, made clear to the world the fragility of the Islamic Republic. In this case, these were actions perpetrated by Israel, which continues to carry out the objectives of the new American paradigm imposed by Trump in the Middle East.
“With the arrival of covid and the Biden presidency, there was a slowdown,” says Abdolmohammadi, and in some cases a return to the classic relationship model (“a concrete example – comments the expert – is the unfreezing of six billion dollars of funds to Iran” in 2023).
But the new trend is what has led to the weakening of Iran that we see today. And now, after the fall of the allied Assad regime in Syria, Tehran “will do everything possible to sustain the regime, whose first concern, like all regimes, is its own survival,” the International Relations professor continues.
In this sense, the most recent statements by Iran should be read, which, for example, last week maintained talks in Geneva with some European countries to return to a nuclear agreement. Commenting on events in Syria, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, He refused to acknowledge the failure of the “Axis of Resistance”, and said that “the territories that have been captured in Syria will be liberated by the brave Syrian youth. Have no doubt that this will happen.”
We must not forget that Iran’s growing weakness on the international stage has been accompanied by growing popular uprisings internally: “The Islamic Republic is a rational actor, and until now it has always known how to negotiate and mediate in the increasingly widespread dissent. of society against them,” says Abdolmohammadi. It has also done so by “projecting internally the power built between 2003 and 2017 by pro-Iranian militias in the Middle East. But after the assassination of Soleimani, another strong blow came for the Islamic Republic: the “women, life, freedom” protests. The new Iranians – comments the professor – took to the streets for a whole year and fought for freedom, not for a new Islamic nation, because in reality Iranian society today is strongly secular, at least in part. 80%. The cultural revolution has already been accomplished.”
“If the project has not been completed until now it is because – the researcher continues explaining – the protests were repressed by force, no global actor has supported the Iranian youth, and finally Hamas, with an insane action, carried out the attacks on October 7th was when Israel rejected the old paradigm and decided to decapitate the leadership of Iranian satellites”.
And meanwhile (somewhat paradoxically) “a unity of purpose has been created between the Israeli government, most of Iranian society and a part of the Sunni Arab world. While the only power that would like to save the Islamic Republic is China together with a part of the American and European democrats (the world close to Borell and Mogherini,” continues Abdolmohammadi. However, many believe that Beijing, partly by tradition, partly by culture, has no interest in intervene in the affairs of other countries. “It is a hypothesis, but I believe that a democratic and stable Iran does not suit China, which prefers a chaotic Middle East to sell products that would not find an outlet elsewhere and buy cheap energy. Just think about it. the fact that 90% of Iranian oil is sold to Beijing.”
Unless new variables emerge, if this new paradigm continues, it is likely that the circle will come full circle with the fall of the regime in Iran. “That’s the intention,” says Professor Abdolmohammadi. “There cannot be a new Middle East without a new secular-democratic Iran. Although a free Iran would be a thorn in the side of the entire region, we can therefore hope that there will be forces that counteract this vision. Iran, with the political Islam of “Sciite influence has favored the political Islamization of Middle Eastern societies within the new paradigm. At the same time, today Iran has the potential to become its opposite.”
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